Death Days: post-apocalyptic survival story (180 Days and Counting... Series Book 10)

by B. R. Paulson

  The older woman blinked at the rock resting harmlessly on the ground and then turned her attention to Bailey. She swallowed, keeping her voice low. “Do you think they’re going to keep going or do you think they’ll go away soon?”

  Why was the woman asking Bailey? She wasn’t old enough to know what was in the minds of those crazy men. Why would they try to do anything to someone else’s house? Why couldn’t they just keep going, since they knew someone else was inside?

  Bailey shook her head and lifted her shoulder but decided that wasn’t good enough. “I don’t know. I don’t know what they want.” She barely whispered.

  “What do you think we should do?” Elba’s worry scared Bailey.

  “I don’t know. Do you have a gun?” She glanced around the living room and into the kitchen like a weapon of some sort would magically appear. What else could they use? A ladle?

  “Um, yes? Here. Take Jessica.” Elba stood and carefully transferred the infant to Bailey’s arms. She disappeared down the hallway, ducking with each pounding on the door and the yelling of the men.

  Bailey shushed Jessica who wasn’t making a sound anymore, but was sucking on her fist. Bailey couldn’t let anything happen to the small child. No matter what. She had to work with Elba to make sure Jessica was taken care of.

  The baby had been through a lot and deserved to survive.

  Cautious treading on the carpet in the hallway pulled Bailey’s attention. The fact that she could even hear Elba’s footsteps over or maybe under the barrage of men’s voices and strikes against the house was amazing.

  Elba fumbled with a firearm, her look of fear and confusion as she tried to work some bullets into the piece scared Bailey.

  “Here, Elba. I’ll do it. Let’s trade again.” Bailey tried smiling at the older woman who had the grace to look embarrassed over her inability to use the gun. She set the piece on the side table with the box of ammunition and reached out gratefully for Jessica.

  Once she had the baby in her arms again, she reclaimed her spot in the corner of the couch and watched Bailey. Drawing her eyebrows together, Elba watched Bailey confidently handle the gun as if it were as simple as a mechanical pencil. Elba cleared her throat. “How do you know how to do that so well? You’re only a baby yourself, Bailey.”

  Bailey didn’t take her comment offensively. Of course, she was a baby to the older woman. Of course, she shouldn’t be there, putting bullets into a firearm that wasn’t hers, getting ready to shoot anyone who got too close to getting inside. Of course, she shouldn’t be faced with the end of the world and charged with protecting and raising an infant that wasn’t even related to her.

  She’d killed someone – a boy she’d liked very much. She’d had to see others die.

  And even without the men trying to get at them from the outside, Bailey faced her own mortality with the presence of the rash spreading up and down her neck and a fevery need to do something or pass out.

  She was a baby. Bailey finally lifted her eyes to meet Elba’s as she answered. “I lost that luxury a long time ago.” It was one she’d never get back.

  Chapter 16

  Perry

  Perry took his leadership role seriously. As captain of the raggedy group, he made sure he was the first one up every morning, rain or shine. No matter how much he wanted to be in bed in the tent, he had a lot to do and even more to worry about. If you wanted power, you had to make sure those you wanted to wield it over were doing their parts.

  Dick still hadn’t come back. The pre-dawn blush was just beginning to lighten the edge of the eastern mountain range. Dick and the men had been gone plenty long and should be back by then, either reporting dead people or dragging women along behind them.

  Perry wasn’t picky. He didn’t care. But having five or six men away from the camp was a measure Perry hadn’t planned on longer than a few hours. He’d taken into account hiking time as well as resistance. But how much resistance could an old man like Dusty and his older wife put up?

  The coffee he poured from the constantly brewing camp coffee pot was stiff and black. He stood off to the side of the fire, kicking another log into place and stirring up the coals from the night into a warmer blaze.

  As the sun slowly soaked the sky with rays from its hiding place behind the mountains, more men stretched and joined Perry at the fire. He didn’t ask a lot as a leader, but what he did, he made sure the men followed. They might stay up late, but they were also up early. They had work to do.

  He had to get that wall into place. He was going to keep a sentry every ten feet or so at posts with rifles. No one was getting in without his permission and no one was getting out. They’d be a private community that was safe.

  Safe and private. His two favorite things.

  He stepped away from the growing group around the fire. He didn’t like the men he led, he just dealt with them.

  About twenty feet from the campfire, Perry wrapped his hands around the mug of heat and lifted it again to his lips. Over the brim of the cup, he spied Cady slipping from the sleeping area they stored the women in and approached the fire.

  Perry lowered his cup and watched as she reached out for the coffee pot and a mug amongst the group of men who fell silent as they watched her. A slight grin slid to the side of Perry’s mouth. Was she brazen or what?

  One of Ted’s cohorts – Dan – stepped forward and yanked her around to face him. Anger and other controversial emotions sprawled across the man’s face as he glared at Cady. Why was he so mad?

  Perry glanced to the spot where he’d left Ted’s body. Ah, Dan must have been one of the guys who had gotten rid of the corpse. They had a standing rule that any dead bodies were to be thrown over the cliff’s edge to prevent scavenging animals from coming into camp.

  Dan drew back his hand and slapped Cady.

  The woman turned her head to the side, facing Perry. She clenched her jaw and slowly turned back to the cocky man who grinned.

  Perry was a little disappointed that Dan had slapped her. If you were going to get a woman – or anyone for that matter – into submission, you had to punch them with a full fist.

  Cady moved so fast, Perry blinked in surprise when her balled up fist connected with Dan’s jawline. Dan stumbled backward at the solid throw. The men shifted to the side, as if making room for the show about to be unleashed.

  Perry wouldn’t get involved this time. Cady wanted to mingle with the men? She’d have to learn her place and Perry wasn’t the guy to do it for her. He lifted his mug again and settled onto the heels of his boots.

  Chapter 17

  Margie

  Margie lifted her head when Scott slid from the back of the rig. She winced with each muffled moan and scraping foot drag he forced. She knew what he was going through and yet she didn’t.

  He’d mumbled some things, regrets that she hadn’t understood, but the pain in his voice was easy to get. When his words had become babies and kill, she couldn’t keep hold of the conversation thread, blocking out everything it could have been or meant. She couldn’t comprehend killing babies, even though he’d said the nurse had begged him?

  Margie couldn’t wrap her brain around that.

  From her spot in the driver’s seat, Margie turned to the side and watched as Scott rounded the front of the Expedition and then made his way slowly to the truck. His shoulders drooped and he forced himself to go further. He was stubborn and that might help him survive. Stubborn and the will to live were both important to surviving the end of anything.

  When he stopped at the boulders, the barest blush of dawn casting a grayish hue over the trees and blurring the details of the area, Margie moved from her seat. She quietly opened the door and the soft morning breeze reminded her why she loved the northwest summers.

  She’d been so wrapped up in returning and keeping herself safe, her husband alive – when he was alive – and then just getting to her remaining family, she’d forgotten what it was about her home that she loved. There was bea
uty in the safety of the mountains, in the strength of the trees and boulders. There was practicality in the mullein growing along the sides of the roads and the plantain spotting the fields. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic explosions, and more didn’t plague that part of the world – her small corner of the world.

  Cady had tried to point that out multiple times to Margie and David, but the couple had brushed off her words of wonder as prepper drivel. But the more Cady had shared with them over the years and the more knowledge they’d collected, the more the area had grown on them.

  Until… now, as Margie returned to keep Cady from it, she had to admit, her home was probably going to be the best place to weather the circumstances. Instead of stopping Cady from going to Margie’s, maybe what she should be doing needed to include finding a way to stop Perry and his gang from controlling her home.

  Her feet hit the ground and she was flooded with resolve. She’d get Scott patched up and they’d find Cady and then they would all band together and stop The Gulch from being the tyrannical group it had become. Maybe they could do something with it, and maybe not. Either way, Margie wanted to go home. She was tired. She wanted her own bed and she wanted to look out over the field and sit in the porch swing David had loved sitting in every evening.

  She needed something to feel closer to David for a second. Disconnected from her husband was the worst part of all. He was gone and she had no way to comfort herself. She needed that. Something like that.

  Maybe Scott needed something similar. A few encouraging words or even someone to unload his burdens onto.

  Margie clicked the door shut, glancing back to make sure Ryker hadn’t woken. She had to make some hard decisions and she’d rather just talk with another adult – one who had just as much at stake as she did.

  Ranger’s whimper pulled her around the end of the Expedition and she stopped and stared.

  Slumped to the side, Scott’s hand hung limply at his side, fingertips bloodied with glossy red. His face was pale in the sunrise and his lashes only drew more attention to the shadows around his eyes.

  Rushing to his side, Margie knelt on the edge of the rough boulder, her jaw slack. “What did you do?” She placed a consoling hand on his arm, the only place she could see that might not hurt him.

  “I killed them, all of them. Over forty innocent babies.” Tears rolled from his red-rimmed eyes and he sniffed weakly. “I had to. The nurse begged me to. Begged me. I killed her, too.” He licked his bottom lip, his breathing labored. “They were sick and… I can’t believe I did it.”

  His confession stopped Margie’s panicked attempts to halt the bleeding on his thigh. She glanced at his face and held her expression neutral as she stared at the mess on his leg.

  Where she’d cut away his jeans to bandage the muscle at Cady’s house had been replaced by raggedy edges torn further along the denim edges. But the denim wasn’t the only thing ruined.

  Scott had ripped the gauze and tape from his flesh, and then dug into the wound as if he wanted to make it bleed more, wanted to destroy the flesh further.

  Margie held her voice neutral as she asked, “Did you do this?” She wasn’t sure how she could fix it. There was a lot of damage.

  Who else would do it, though? It’s not like there was a wild animal lurking around the rocks just waiting for a chance to tear at flesh and not eat it.

  “My chest… I needed something else to hurt.” He opened his painfilled eyes, pleading from his very soul. “I killed them, Cady. I’m dragging you guys back. I can’t go on. I don’t want to.” He stared at her, caught up in his confession. “Please, say you forgive me. I didn’t mean… I mean, I would never hurt anyone without a reason, you know?”

  “Scott, it’s me, Margie.” She glanced at his thigh and the fresh stream of blood oozing from his flesh. He’d lost a lot more blood over the last day than Margie could see possible. She didn’t want to watch him die, but she had a feeling he was giving up.

  He blinked, ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead. “Right. Margie.” He licked his lips. “I know.” But his eyes were glazed and his words slurred where the sounds should have clipped off. “Can you just sit with me?” Scott’s plea didn’t fall on a cold heart.

  Margie wasn’t sure how she’d gotten to bear the confessions of her daughter’s friend or what she would tell Cady when the opportunity arose – because it had to arise. She had to be able to talk to Cady again. So did Scott. “It’s not too late. I could probably…”

  He shook his head, leaning his head back and resting it on the curve of a neighboring rock. “I just… I wish there was some way to know for sure that I was forgiven, you know? You don’t get to escape purgatory when you kill that many innocents.” His words slurred further and he mumbled some more and then closed his eyes. His breathing shallowed and Margie blinked back tears.

  Reaching up, she brushed at the hair that fell across his brow and murmured, “If anyone would be forgiven, Scott, it would be you. Go in peace.” She nodded tightly and glanced at the worriedly pacing and whining dog. “Ranger, you watch him for a few minutes.” When Scott was gone, she’d have to figure out what she was doing. She couldn’t leave Cady’s things here, and she couldn’t justify just leaving Scott out in the open.

  She couldn’t stay there, beside Scott, while he breathed his last. She shuddered, standing and stepping around the boulder to Scott’s left. Her foot kicked the rock but… it didn’t sound like a rock or even feel like one. It sounded hollow, like a bucket or something.

  Margie glanced back at the slowly fading Scott and debated once again against forcing him to let her help him.

  But no. He wanted this. She didn’t know how she would even care for him after this point. Where would she put him? She couldn’t carry him to the truck or the car and she couldn’t force him to keep his hands off the wound. No, this was where he would lie. Where he would cross over and accept the things he could not do and the things he had.

  Margie bent down and brushed a collection of needles and moss from on top of the item she’d thought was a rock. Instead, she uncovered two plastic tote bins. Clearly marked with Cady’s family name.

  Margie had found where all of Cady’s things had gone.

  She moved the totes one at a time to the truck, stacking them at the back of the bumper. She’d have to leave some things where they were since she couldn’t load everything from the Expedition into the truck as well as the things that Cady had packed into the truck, but she could certainly take the majority of it.

  A tote of baby formula would be added to the items the truck. Margie wasn’t going to leave anything important behind. She was going to help her daughter and granddaughter. There was nothing else to choose from. They must have a baby with them, if the formula was packed. That added a level of stress to the situation.

  An extra key to the truck would be on the Expedition keyring. It wasn’t the first time Margie had borrowed a vehicle from Cady.

  Ranger whined and whined, his whimpers growing more plaintive and desperate as Scott’s breathing shallowed and then dropped off.

  Margie tried not focusing on the things Scott was going through. At least he was dying on his terms and not someone else’s. She would be able to cope with that. She could handle that, if she had to go.

  Ranger’s long, low mournful call gave Margie pause and she listened, bowing her head as the absence of his breath shut down the silence. So, Scott had gone. She nodded tightly as if to give herself permission to mourn him at a later time.

  She would need to cover his body with some branches or something. She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. How much more would she be expected to cope with? How much more? She stepped back, tilting her head so her face was raised toward the sky. Inhaling deeply, she let her rage and sadness out in a yell that came from deep in her gut. She and Ranger were in the same emotional rut, but Margie couldn’t let herself give over to the tears.

  The temporary release was enough to give her a few m
ore days without a breakdown. She could make it.

  Margie would tuck his death into the same pocket of her mind as she’d tucked David and Kelsey. When she was safe, she could dwell on her losses. But not until then. When she was ready, she would have Ryker help her grab Ranger and they would head out in search of Cady and Bailey.

  Maybe her friends, the Parks, had seen something – if they were even still around.

  Chapter 18

  Abigail

  Remnants of the Children of the Sun lay scattered throughout the musty basement. Pictures drawn by children hung listlessly on the distressed wainscoting. Tattered velvet curtains, partly ripped from the rod, hung to the side of the window, blocking only a bit of the sunlight.

  Tomathy, the leader, flopped over the edge of the platform he’d had raised for his glory.

  Abigail breathed hard, her chest rising and falling. She scratched at the pocked concrete wall she leaned against, staring at the six women and two men who had survived the virus and the Cure only to drink the punch that Tomathy had passed out to them in little paper Dixie cups.

  She’d watched him prepare it. She’d listened to his insane ramblings. His shaking hands had given away his withdrawal. None of his drugs had been available for quite some time.

  The same drugs he’d used to make his followers, well, to make them his followers. How long had she sat there, with her cup of promises sitting on the ground by her knee? Since morning? Since dawn? The afternoon light was over-bright as it shone through the sliding doors of the daylight-style basement slider. Tomathy had convinced one of his rich followers to give them his house. Abigail couldn’t remember the man’s name. She’d been given to him a few times but he’d liked them younger than her so she’d been spared. Like seventeen wasn’t young enough.